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Hello and welcome back to the 
Retail podcast live from NRF 

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with Big Commerce. 
I'm lucky enough to be joined by

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Senior Vice President Meghan 
Stabler. 

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Yeah, that alright. 
High five on now. 

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Yeah, it's been a long. 
Day take number six, just in 

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case you Why are we Live 5 live 
at the beginning of the show? 

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But anyway, as you can say, 
we're already having fun with 

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Big Commerce. 
So Megan, Yeah, if you don't 

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mind, just take us through about
what Big Commerce does for those

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who don't know what the focus 
is. 

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And what I'd love to know is 
what's been top of mind for a 

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retailer's coming to you? 
During this show, all right. 

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So Big Commerce is an enterprise
e-commerce platform. 

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So you know our our ability to 
provide the world's leading 

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brands and retailers with world 
class ecommerce experience, 

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right, a modern tech stack. 
So people have probably heard 

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about composability and things, 
right. 

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So we're composable e-commerce 
platform. 

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You probably got brands and 
retailers that are both B to C 

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and maybe B to B. 
So we, we provide both 

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capabilities and that sort of 
modern tech stack to really take

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advantage of you know what is 
needed in today's business that 

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connect to shoppers wherever 
they are. 

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And then we have a subsidiary 
called Phenomics, which is all 

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about optimising your data feed 
and feed management to make sure

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you're connecting to the 
channels that you care about 

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where shoppers are out. 
So the Instagrams are tik toks, 

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right? 
And so optimising data feeds is 

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also one of the core things that
we do. 

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And and you build that as in 
like you help retailers with the

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whole stack in terms of from or 
is there one specific element of

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that is that? 
Such no, the whole stack, I mean

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you know our focus is making 
sure that brands and retailers 

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can build online unique 
experiences or offline unique 

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experiences too and combine it 
together. 

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So as a modern ecommerce 
platform, we're not a monolith 

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where a composable platform, you
can just do pure either be you 

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can have direct to consumer if 
you want to as well, yeah, or 

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you can just be pure B to C So 
we enable you to combine all of 

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those in in a tech stack with a 
high performing checkout, create

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unique, compelling experiences, 
integrate advanced functionality

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from many of our partners like 
Bloom Reach or Algolia, 

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integrate content management 
systems like Content Stack or 

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Contentful into it and really 
build this wonderful experience.

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So we find brands and retailers 
literally a changing the way 

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that they want to engage with 
their shoppers and their 

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consumers online and they have 
to find those right. 

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Tech stacks, Yeah, they make you
work to connect to them. 

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And as I said, they've also got 
to connect to the channels where

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I may be shopping their 
Instagrams that Tik Toks, right 

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and all those other platforms. 
So we enable that from within 

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the platform and within our 
ecosystem of of providers to 

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him. 
What's been in terms of when you

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think about your experience here
at NRF and the the? 

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The. 
Volume of retailers trying to 

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solve their different problems 
What What's your sense? 

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What do you feel? 
Everyone's all focused. 

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On look, you know it's 2024, 
beginning of 2024, people have 

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people and businesses have spent
that sort of fast, rapid couple 

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of years through the COVID era, 
right. 

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You know they had to rapidly 
accelerated into you know, buy 

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online, pick up curbside, right.
They had to think about buy now,

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pay later for shifting economic 
conditions. 

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So we know that brands and 
retailers had to rapidly adopt 

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tech. 
You know, we're a couple of 

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years past the pandemic and now 
the beginning to say, well hold 

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on, is our tech stack that we 
have around us really the right 

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one? 
We've been on Salesforce for a 

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long time. 
We're Adobe for a long time. 

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Yeah. 
And yeah, those are great 

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platforms, but are they really 
delivering what we need for the 

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future of where retail needs to 
be or the future of our brand? 

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Are we able to rapidly innovate 
and build into the platform and 

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connect to shoppers on whatever 
surface they are, the mobile, 

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the tablets or, you know, live 
stream shopping, all these other

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things? 
So there's the ecom, digital 

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marketers. 
CDOs are really looking at 

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what's next in retail. 
Yeah, they're beginning to think

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about what do we need to have in
terms of tech stack? 

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Do we buy one from everybody? 
Yeah. 

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Or can we think about things 
like Lego, right, and start to 

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see we just need a advanced 
search and merge or we need to 

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have a really good integrated 
CMS or we're going to have a 

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really solid ERP or OMS or IMS, 
right? 

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Yeah. 
It doesn't have to be all one 

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platform, but we can integrate 
all these things, make it to 

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what you want, right. 
So, you know, in the UK, right, 

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where you're from, you know, the
white stuff, Yeah, right. 

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Or Ted Baker. 
Yeah, right. 

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Other brands, look, Hurler, 
right, high end fashion, right. 

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They're really looking at what 
they can do. 

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Or again, I talked about B2B, 
think about MKM building 

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supplies in the UK, right. 
So traditional building 

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supplies, but they need to have 
a modern tech stack because we 

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as consumers are buying things 
from them. 

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But they also have that sort of 
wholesale distributors outside 

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due to it that they need to 
provide that modern tech saying 

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too, yeah, so we're seeing a lot
of adjustment and people coming 

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by the booth and saying, so tell
me what you do and how you do it

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differently because we all say 
e-commerce and we all say 

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online, right. 
What do you do differently? 

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Checkout is strong for us. 
Building that composable 

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platform, the integrations to 
get you live sooner is, is key 

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as well. 
So those are the really rigid 

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conversations we're having with 
people saying tell me more. 

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How do you just out of curiosity
the ecommerce like is there a 

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post element? 
Do you connect to the post? 

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Yep. 
Or is there is there a post 

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version of what you do online? 
You know we we do have a point 

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of sale integrations across many
of the different point of sales.

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We have integrations to like you
know all different PPS. 

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You know whether you're using 
PayPal, Braintree or using Agen 

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or you want to use Stripe or you
only use advanced checkout 

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Stripe link right one page 
checkout. 

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Our role is to make e-commerce 
as seamless as possible. 

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Not just for you as the 
administrator and the builder of

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your your site and the 
experience and embedding AR and 

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virtual reality and all those 
other new things that are coming

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are using AI to to to really 
streamline things. 

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Yeah. 
But also to make sure that 

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you're connecting to the fastest
checkout the the sort of Google 

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pays and the apples and the 
wallets right Or getting into 

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stripe link one page pass 
useless checkout and those are 

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the punishes we have. 
And why is that important? 

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Because if I'm a purchaser on a 
site, we're always, always 

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getting interrupted and doing 
different things right. 

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I wanna make sure that I'm 
giving you, as the brand or the 

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retailer, the ability to check 
somebody out immediately without

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going to multiple pages. 
Yep, I want to give you the 

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ability. 
If you are saying you know what,

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we see a lot of the demographics
that we want to sell products to

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on Instagram or are on TikTok, 
we want to give you that ability

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to check out on into Instagram 
or shop on Instagram, right, and

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make it seamless, right. 
So having the integrations with 

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our partnerships and our 
ecosystem is core to enable the 

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brand and retailer really to 
grow and to acquire the shoppers

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wherever they are. 
In that instance, right. 

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I my view is biassed by because 
of two things, emotional or 

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neat, right? 
The emotion is, Oh my gosh, I 

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love that blouse or I love those
sneakers. 

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I'm gonna have the same thing. 
So instead of an emotional, in 

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the moment purchase, if you're 
doing the right retargeting or 

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advertising, yeah, I want to be 
able to convert them right now. 

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Or it's a. 
Need so looking forward, I mean 

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interacting in one of the talks 
I was out there was talking 

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about how every retailer will 
have its own AI, right As us as 

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consumers will have our own AI 
retailers will have their 

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version of AI and I guess that 
led itself to what you're 

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saying. 
Do you build that yourself or do

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you buy into somebody else's 
vision of what you what you can 

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have? 
So let me be a little bit 

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controversial. 
AIAI is nothing new, right? 

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We've used a I for a very long 
time in our lives. 

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Retailers and brands have been 
using a, it's an algorithm, 

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right? 
The algorithms have got smarter.

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They got speed and scale to them
now and now we're infusing it 

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with data, right. 
So that's the generative AI, 

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that's the other things we got. 
So AI is nothing brand new, it's

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just speed, scale and then the 
incorporation of data right to 

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it. 
We've been using AI in product 

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data feeds to normalise data to 
optimise, give you a stronger 

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return on ad spend, improve your
ROI and essentially get your 

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product described the right way 
for the different schemas. 

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Sure. 
Instagram's requirement for how 

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you describe a product is very 
different to TikTok is very 

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different to Amazon. 
So, right. 

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So we've been using AI to help 
really make sure that we remove 

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that manual effort and 
streamline it. 

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We've got a in the product, 
right. 

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So if you're doing search 
recommendations, right, you've 

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you've got inside it. 
I think AI as a whole including 

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for B to B by the way is like in
improving the the order 

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management, right, or the 
invoice creation through AI 

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because we know from history and
from data what you're trying to 

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do. 
So let's add those things in 

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check mark instead of you 
manually putting the things into

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your your, your, your baskets 
and doing it. 

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So we are embedding AI into the 
product, right. 

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We're infusing it to help you 
make predictive analytics to 

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show you what's going on into 
the data, into combining data 

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leaks through, you know, Google 
Data Cloud and other things. 

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So AI is big, right? 
I mean, I I can't walk around so

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many boos without seeing AI AI. 
AI, AI is the next step. 

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But you've got to be cautious on
AI as well. 

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How are you going to use it, 
right. 

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I I don't think chat bots are 
there right now when it comes to

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it. 
There's a booth opposite iOS 

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that has a generator that has an
AI, hey, I'm a AI person here to

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help you and you know it's AI, 
right. 

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So I think we got to, we used to
go, but for today's retailers 

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and brands, look for the Econ 
platforms that are helping 

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streamline and optimise what 
you've got today, help you 

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generate your product listings 
and your descriptions, right. 

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We've got things that are 
different variants during a blue

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sweater, right? 
You want to describe the 

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material, you may have different
colours, different sizes, 

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different options. 
AI can help normalise that so 

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you don't manually have to do 
it. 

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And obviously wishing you, if we
do things manually, we tend to 

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err, yeah. 
So I think a I is is very 

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beneficial in a lot of different
things. 

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Final thoughts in terms of where
next NRF, yeah, we're coming 

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back, Yep. 
What do you think you would have

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achieved, helped retailers 
achieve in 2024? 

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What should they be doing in 20?
20 I'll tell you a couple of 

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quick things. 
Optimising, normalising your 

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product data feeds and speeds 
into as many channels as you can

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do. 
And that's one thing we can do 

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real quick. 
Provide an ROI in about a month 

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and show you the value of doing 
that and why. 

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Return on ad spend improved 
average order value rate. 

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All of the things that we wanted
to wanted to do 2 would be speed

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of checkout, right? 
Making sure you got one page 

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password. 
Let's check out on key PSP's and

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wallets. 
Apple, Google Pay, PayPal, 

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Stripe, Adrian, maybe others in 
top of it too because they have 

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to check the people out. 
And probably the third thing is 

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showing that, you know, we have 
one of the fastest if not the 

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fastest checkouts in the world 
on our platform for brands and 

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retailers to use. 
Right. 

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Perfect. 
Mayor, it's been. 

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I don't need to check your 
surname again because that's 

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good. 
That's good. 

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Thank you. 
Cheers Alex. 

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Good.
